


Like a Slap Bet in the Face

by skuls



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:33:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6989137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompts. The title has nothing to do with the stories, I just thought it was cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's 3 am!

Falling in love with Robin has narrowed his world a bit. Whereas he might’ve gone home with some girl long before now, he’s still in their booth. And she’s there, too. 

“It’s 3 am,” Robin says, voice almost a whine.

“Come on, Robin, let’s not end an awesome night.”

She leans back in her seat, smiling and pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly. “You and your awesome nights, Barney.” She curls her fingers around her glass, but doesn’t move to drink.

“You aren’t really moving to Japan, are you,” he says quietly.

She nods firmly. “I am,” she proclaims, tapping her forefinger on the table.

 _Good_ , he thinks. He can forget about her, stop thinking these unwanted thoughts and feeling these unwanted feelings and get back to what he enjoys…

Her eyes meet his, and he’s a goner all over again.

“But,” she adds. “I’m going to miss you.”

His heart leaps a little. “You are?”

“Of course!” she says. “You, and Ted, and Lily and Marshall. I’ll miss you all.”

Oh. He’s still just her friend. That’s all he’ll probably ever be, really.

Robin drains her glass, and stands again. This time, he lets her go. 

* * *

The phone rings five times before he answers it, prompted by the name blinking across the front. “Robin?” he says. “It’s 3 am. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says with an uncharacteristic sniff. “It’s just - I was thinking about the scare.”

He’s been thinking about it, too. He wonders if maybe it’d be worth it for his life to become boring. He wonders if Robin would’ve come back to him if she had been.

“Do you… wish I had been?”

 _Yes,_ he thinks. But he can’t say that because she’s with Kevin, and he said he didn’t, and it’s not the right time, not now. Nothing good ever happens after 2 am, Ted has only told him a million times.

“I thought you didn’t want kids, Robin,” he says instead, instead of something comforting. He’s not very good with comfort. Maybe he should’ve told her a joke instead.

Her voice cracks a little as she says, “I don’t,” too quickly. She adds in an abrupt, “Merry Christmas, Barney,” before hanging up the phone. The silence in his ears is cacophonous. 

“Merry Christmas, Robin,” he says to his empty bedroom.

* * *

“It’s 3 am,” she says. Snowflakes are still fluttering around them, chill biting through her jacket. She’s used to the cold. She grew up in Canada.

Barney’s arms tighten around her from behind. “Do you want to go in?”

She slides her fingers down and through his. “Nope.”

* * *

It’s 3 am. Her wedding day. She leans down and kisses her fiance goodnight before going up to her room. Tomorrow - or today, really - she will be a bride. In less than 24 hours, she will be someone’s wife. Or not just someone’s wife - _Barney’s_ wife. Until death do them part.

It’s 3 am. She can live with that.


	2. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”

“If I gave you an out… right now, if there was an exit ramp, right here at the three year mark… would you take it?”

Her immediate inward response is initial panic (why would she say that, _she_ doesn’t want this to end, but if _he_ does…). She waits for his answer, lifting her chin in some slight defiance, although whether this is a defiance of herself or of his answer, she isn’t sure.

“Whoa… whoa…” Barney says, holding up a hand. “You want this to end?”

She doesn’t answer, not right away. Neither of them got here by being straightforward about their feelings, after all. “Do you?”

“I… I… of course not!”

Robin snorts and gestures to the discarded laptop. “We fight… all the time. You hate to travel with me…”

“That doesn’t make me want to _divorce_ you!” He looks a little green. She suddenly remembers the speech he gave Nick. She always assumed he meant all that, but also, they hadn’t discussed it since the day of. _Did_ he mean it?

She looks at him again, and counters _no, probably not._

“I’m not taking an out unless you want one,” he says as steadily as he’s ever said anything. “I married you knowing how important your career was to you. I also married you with the intention of staying married to you. So unless this out is what you want… then no, I wouldn’t take it. Do you want it?”

She sniffs. _Does_ she? She tries to imagine not being married to Barney, sleeping alone, traveling alone, going home anywhere besides the loft. She _can’t_ imagine it. Weird as it is, she can’t imagine not having this weight on her hand.

“No,” she says finally. “But you hate to travel.”

Barney scoffs, as if a little thing like that isn’t going to make him stop wanting her. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”


	3. “I guess dying with you isn’t the worse way to go.”

“This is the end,” he moans from his spot on the bed. 

Robin sighs as she crawls across his carpet (possibly stained with who-knows-what). “It’s not the end, Barney. Where was the last place you saw your painkillers?”

Stricken mostly immobile still by his car accident, Barney cannot exactly crawl around the floor searching for his painkillers. So he called Robin, God only knows why. Well, Ted has been busy with Stella and her daughter lately… But Lily is much better at this type of thing. 

“I told you, on my bedside table,” he replies stubbornly. 

Robin feels on the floor around the bedside table. “Look, Barney, can we just turn a light on?”

“I like the dark,” he whines plaintively. 

Robin sighs and makes another round of the room on her knees, searching for a little bottle of pills that will more than likely shut Barney up. 

“It hurts,” Barney says. He sounds like a little kid.

“I know,” she replies. She may be annoyed but she isn’t made of stone, and seeing Barney in the hospital was both very weird and very hard. He is her friend, after all. Even if they’ve…

_No_. She slides her hands across the floor with more purpose. “Are you sure you didn’t take it out of the room?”

“No, I always leave it in the same place.”

Robin runs her hand along the bottom of the wall, and her fingers brush a small plastic bottle. She curls her fingers around it eagerly. 

“I guess dying with you isn’t the worst way to go,” Barney says quietly. When she stands, she sees him staring at her with large eyes. Unfamiliar, soft eyes. These are not Barney Stinson eyes - or, at least, not the Barney Stinson she knows.

“You’re not going to die, Barney,” she says. “And I think you really need these - you’re delirious. Here.” She slips the small white bottle into his hands. 

In the faint light of the room, she listens to the rattle of the pills, and watches him swallow. “Thanks,” he says raggedly.

“Yeah, well, just know that there’s not many people I’d crawl around on the floor in the middle of the night for,” she says. “So, be glad you made the list.” 

“You’d make my list, you know,” Barney says, voice numbed by fading pain and fatigue. 

“Thanks, Barney,” she says. “Call me - or Lily, or Marshall, or _someone_ \- if you need anything.” She closes the door behind her. 

Why the hell is he calling her up in the middle of the night to look for his painkillers? He hates this - this, this _feeling_ bubbling up inside of him when those dark eyes look at him.

“You’d make every list,” he tells the empty room.


	4. “Stop running from this. I know I’m not the only one who feels it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during Symphony of Illumination because I love that episode

“Robin.” His hand is patting her face. “Hey, Robin.”

She blinks blearily up at Barney and sits up. She is on a bathroom floor. It’s Thanksgiving. She’s pregnant - maybe. With her ex’s baby - who she left for her current boyfriend. 

Wow - time to pass out again.

“You’re actually _excited_ about this?” she snaps. “Do I need yo remind you that _I’m with Kevin now_?”

He looks hurt. “No, you don’t need to remind me.” He helps her off of the floor. “You would, uh, _have_ the baby right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “I just… maybe if I told Kevin what happened, explained that I still want to be with him… maybe he’d understand, I mean he’s a counselor, he’s probably seen some fucked up stuff…”

“Wait, you wouldn’t…” Barney looks even more hurt. 

Would she? Robin doesn’t know what she wants. It’s Barney’s baby… but _Kevin_ … “I don’t know,” she says.

“Hey.” Barney grabs her elbow. “Stop running from this. I know I’m not the only one who feels it.” 

“Feels _what_?”

“This- this, between us. You may not have left Kevin but I left Nora, and if we’re going to be parents…” He has this strange look of wonder on his face. God, has he even considered this? She can’t even imagine people like them being parents. They’re not corny, like Marshall and Lily and Ted. She’s not Mom material. She doesn’t _like_ kids!

“Look, Barney,” Robin says evenly. “Why don’t we talk about… _us_ when we know for sure if I’m pregnant, okay?” Odds are, really, that Kevin _won’t_ stay with her if he finds out that she is pregnant with Barney’s baby, psychologist or not, lap dance they refuse to talk about because they both weren’t okay with it or not. And then, well, Barney is the only person she could imagine going to if it didn’t work out, because, well, she thinks he might be in love with her, and once upon a time, she was in love with him, and she might be carrying his _baby_ … God, she can’t even think about it. 

“Okay,” he says distractedly. “I’m going to be a daddy,” he repeats.

This time, she doesn’t faint. She isn’t quite sure how to feel about this at all - but. But. At least it isn’t some random person - or God forbid Ted, because he would’ve ran out and bought her a ring right away. At least it’s only Barney.


End file.
